Our Website Managers are saying ...

Sometimes the hard part of doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not just the creation of content, but finding a starting point. The phenomenon of writer’s block strikes everyone, especially when what a writer is writing about is unfamiliar territory. In the past few weeks, I have written proposals or content for a ballet company, a salon, and a financial advisor. My first assignment for Blotter was for a company that sells a time management tool that is geared towards the field service industries (HVAC, lawn care, pretty much anything that requires hard work and sweat), and I wrote is specifically geared towards window washing companies. My familiarity with these topics is limited at best, and finding a way to make topics I know little about it challenging.

None of these areas of life or industry are things I have a deep knowledge of, and probably never really will. Nonetheless, it is my job to learn about these companies enough to write an interesting article of 600 words or more and to sound intelligent enough that those in the industry don’t see right through my ignorance. While this certainly presents a challenge, ultimately it is one of the best parts of writing the content I create for blotter.com. Every day, I learn something new about an aspect of life, business, the arts (the list goes on) that I had little to no previous experience or knowledge about.

Part of how Blotter is marketing its brand in 2016 is through the recognition of the fact that the people and businesses we write for and about simply know more than we do about their field or industry. One of the hardest parts of the process of selling our products of SEO, website design, and social media management to a client is convincing the client that our roles in the marketing of their company is necessary. Who are we to write about a client’s business or field? I would venture to guess that 95% of our clients have the skill set to write intelligently about their field. Our clients are educated and expert in their respective markets.

The problem, as with many things, is the paradoxical lack of the most infinite of resources: time. Of course an owner of a ballet company can speak and write more currently and with much more authority about trends in ballet, cutting edge leotards, and updates to the safety regulations of ballet performance floors than I can. It is not our assumption that we are more able to intelligently write about ballet. However, in time, through research and personal education and through the guidance of our clients, we can and do create quality content the old fashioned way. We talk to our clients, learn their needs, and take their cues on where to mine the internet for quality content and articles in order to create original content for them.

The difference here is not our ability to create quality content for clients. We can. And in time, we get better at it as we learn more and more about that particular client’s field. Again, the lack of time on the part of the client to constantly update their website with fresh and current trends relevant to their field, to stay current on the company social media outlets, and fix the bugs on the company is a job in itself. Essentially, unless a business large or small has someone whose specific daily tasks include managing these tasks, the importance of them fall by the wayside as the daily tasks of running a business necessarily take higher priority. The difference is that we have the time to create the content to keep a business’s online identity current, while our clients, do not. As someone wiser than me once said to me, “business is convenience.”

This is why we are offering the service of training our clients on how to create content themselves. Do we believe that our clients know their fields and can do the jobs that we do? Of course we do. It would be insulting if we didn’t. With tools like Hootsuite, companies can more efficiently manage their social media posts. While most people are not as versed on website design, Blotter can offer services like website design and hosting while at the same time explaining the process of fixing bugs and dead links on a company site. We also can train a client on the creation of timely, efficient, quality content postings to a company blog feed or website that uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to the fullest capacity, using keywords and key phrases that result in better Google search rankings.

Beyond my responsibilities in creating content for clients is creating current content for blotter.com. Blotter, when treated as a client, is not unlike any other client I write for or about. I have to ask myself questions like, “how do I make window washing software management tools interesting?,” and, to be honest, it really is a challenge sometimes. Blotter is no different. “SEO,” “website design,” and “social media management tools” are not exactly the most interesting, funny, or sexy topics with which to start an article.

Each week, part of my duties for Blotter in 2016 will be to write postings about SEO, website design, and social media management in a way that somehow connects with the reader and is interesting.

Motherboard Senior Writer Elise Sole recognizes this problem and draws the line of optimizing her writing by creating the connection to the inescapable phenomenon that is Star Wars. Like myself, Sole is a geeky writer who loves and appreciates the storytelling of Star Wars, its great characters old and new, and sees how Star Wars: The Force Awakens is not only an excellent movie (I was able to view it last week with some friends and family at a mostly empty theatre on a Monday night, miraculously), but a true godsend to people like myself who are charged with creating content. Essentially, why deny the inevitable: Star Wars is something people love worldwide, and makes for interesting reading for both the writer of articles like this and of her excellent piece for Motherboard (a division of one of my favorite online magazines, Vice), “Star Wars is God’s Gift to Content Farms.”

Anyhow, Sole does an excellent job at making my job at Blotter easier. Terms like “content creation,” “SEO,” and “website design” are only interesting to a certain sect of the populace (generally, people in the online marketing industry). Whether it be a small content farm like Blotter, a medium-sized one like Vice, or huge news media organizations of all political leanings like CNN or Fox News, Sole points out that something as big in the cultural zeitgeist like Star Wars is hard to avoid, so don’t fight it. Before long, it will be hard to resist the temptation to write pandering lines about Star Wars: The Force Awakens being a Space Ballet.

One of the premier services offered by blotter.com is search engine optimization (SEO). In their Starter Guide to Search Engine Optimization, Google defines SEO as “making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.”

Blotter.com contributes to your company website’s search engine optimization through the use of keywords and key phrases in continuously updated original content in 600+ word postings each week. The results of blotter.com’s efforts is bringing your website higher in rank when an individual does a Google search for the specified keyword or key phrase.

In an effort to more clearly highlight how SEO works best for a small business, turning to the generator of the vast majority of internet keyword sources, Google, seems like a logical source to reference.

In an informative youtube video entitled “SEO For Startups in Under 10 Minutes,” Google Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye details how small businesses can use useful web tools like Google Analytics for search engine optimization. The video is geared towards small businesses that have websites with fewer than 50 separate pages that are interested in search results for a low number of keyword searches. For example, amazon.com would not be ideal as they sell nearly everything imaginable, but a person who bakes cookies for sale around the holidays would be perfect.

Search engine optimization

Below is Ohye’s video, followed by a list of time-stamped highlights and notes that summarizes the 10-year Google veteran’s smart, concise advice.

(2:04): Background Check

Ohye recommends performing a background check on your company’s domain name to be sure that it was not previously owned by marketing spammers or any other type of potentially annoying or shady group, and here provides specific instructions for doing so.

(3:15): Website Design

In this section of the video, Ohye provides strategies for small businesses to use smart website design in order to attract and impress potential customers, investors, and the press. Your company’s ease-of-use and seamless navigation is noted as key to search engine optimization, in addition to a focused simplicity of all of your company’s individual web pages that should contain logical topics that can be easily inferred from a user new to the website.

Ohye goes on to explain the importance of deciding on a specified purpose that each individual web page serves, saying that you should “define your conversion.” During the website design phase of building your company’s domain, ask yourself constantly, “What do you want the visitor to do? Should the visitor buy the product or service offered on your website here? Should they share the information provided on this page through social media?” Ohye goes on to say that a company website should aim to create some type of meaningful conversion on every single page. Minimizing a website visitor’s need to click forward onto a new page is clearly important to your business, large or small.

(5:01): Using “Smart Copy”

This section of the video is perhaps the most important part as it explains how blotter.com most effectively establishes and contributes to search engine optimization over time. Ohye explains how selecting proper keywords, original content, positive user reviews, and customer satisfaction policies are all a part of what she terms “smart copy,” a service central to the blotter.com client model.

(6:57): Pitfalls for Search Engine Optimization

Ohye here explains that hiring a bad search engine optimization marketing firm is the first and one of the most fatal mistakes that a company of any size can make. Blotter.com is entering its 17th year of existence in 2016, something almost no online marketing firm can boast. With more experience than most online marketing companies and the satisfied client list to match, blotter.com takes care of this initial pitfall with ease.

Another trap that business both large and small fall into is in website design. Having a fancy, interactive website is nice, but having “indexable, searchable text” is more important. With blotter.com’s search engine optimization solutions, your website’s static and updated copy is impressive in content and effective at SEO.

(8:46): Social Media Marketing

While our Google expert agrees that social media is extremely useful (especially with a “zero” price tag), it also is important not to rely solely on sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word of your company’s goods and services. When using social media, it is best to use the strengths available to your particular business’s resources. If someone who works with or for you likes to tweet or post to Facebook, this is a valuable tool that you should be eager to use to your advantage.Overall, Ohye’s advice is especially useful to small businesses, but the search engine optimization tools and strategies she highlights in her youtube tutorial is something that is sound advice regardless of have 5 employees or 50,000.

Vegan Dog Treats, People Who Wear Tie-Dyed Clothing, and The Relevance of Web Design in the Era of Social Media Saturation

Why do I even need a website these days? Facebook is free and it takes care of connecting with my customers.

One of the first and most obvious components of starting a new business is creating a relevant, vibrant online presence in a good small business website design. In an age where the use of social media like Facebook or Twitter is nearly a given, having a well-designed, dynamic website for businesses of all types has begun to be overlooked. Any small business owner with limited resources might ask themselves, “why even have a website when my company Facebook page is a free, useful tool to represent the products and services my business provides?” This is, of course, a valid question.

There are a multitude of reasons that a small business website design should still have a user-friendly, well-designed company website. One reason is quite simple: a larger reach for your customers to interact with your business. Anyone would agree that having a website creates a higher potential for company brand awareness than not having one.

And?

Another very important reason for any business to have a website is eCommerce. The purpose of any business, put bluntly, is to make money from the goods and services offered to the public. Having a place for a potential customer to make a purchase from a business online is an obvious and essential element to a company’s interaction with clients. While social media is revolutionary in creating brand awareness for a company, it is not a destination for the curious customer to actually procure the goods or services rendered. Especially during the holidays, the choice between leaving one’s house to purchase something on a rainy day in dense traffic or to buy something online is why companies like Amazon exists. We all know that nearly anything and everything is available for purchase online. If your company does not provide an option to a potential customer to purchase your family recipe for chocolate chip cookies sold at $5 each or the handmade wallets you have spent all year stitching together directly from you online, you risk losing a potential sale. Retail placement, one-on-one customer interaction, and advertising are key elements in increasing sales and should not be ignored. However, the value of having an easy-to-use, fun marketplace for your gluten-free vegan dog biscuits that retail for $12.95 a box is almost essential.

Having a direct and deeper reach to a company’s client base is what a website offers in addition to (not in place of) social media campaigns. When someone decides that Fido can only eat non-GMO, hormone-free, vegan, small batch, handcrafted, artisanal, free trade, gluten free doggie treats because it makes his coat so illustrious, you want Google to bring them to your website. Websites are what come up at the top of search results, not Facebook pages, not tweets. Of course, most companies do not offer such specific products or services, although they do exist. Simply put, a company website that connects potential customers to businesses are vital to company growth, if not its survival.

Alright. I am convinced. That was long-winded, but I agree that I need a website. Now what?

One of the first things to consider is your company’s domain name, or URL. Let’s stick with our example of cage-free, local, soy-free dog treats. Suppose the company name is “Astrid’s Healthy Dog Treats” (I imagine Astrid wears a lot of patchouli and burns incense all of the time and has 11 Scottish Terriers, but I digress). The first thing to do is to find out if the domain “astridshealthydogtreats.com” is available for purchase. However, Astrid is too busy baking dog biscuits to worry about websites, not to mention somehow finding time for herself with all the hungry vegan doggie mouths to feed.

As a full-service online marketing company, blotter.com can help poor Astrid with her booming business and free up her time to listen to more jam bands play guitar solos for 23 minutes. As a her personal shaman for internet marketing, blotter.com can provide Astrid with the following services:

Selecting a proper website domain name: Blotter.com will guide Astrid in the thoughtful and intelligent selection of a company website name. “Astridshealthydogtreats.com” seems like a good choice.

Website Design: Blotter.com’s experience, professional team of website designers will create an online presence for Astrid that will truly be unique. It’s almost impossible that it would not be.

eCommerce: As mentioned previously, connecting Astrid with customers using intelligent website design is important, as is creating an online marketplace for her to sell her healthy dog treats. Blotter.com can create an online shopping cart for Astrid to hustle all of her inventive flavors, from Broccoli, Radish, and Rice to Peppered Citrus Sweet Potato Lemongrass, her customers will be able to refill their orders with ease.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Astrid has no idea what this means. But since she’s so happy with the clean, zippy website design and the subsequent sales spike in her 11 Scotties’ favorite flavored vegan dog biscuit, Honeydew Pimiento Orange Blossom Hot Pepper Dust, she trusts that blotter.com will make sure that her specific clients will quickly find Astrid’s Healthy Dog Treats on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Did we mention that Astrid’s dog treats are organic?

Continuously Updated Online Content: While this article is meant as a humorous narrative, hopefully it illustrates the range and ability of blotter.com’s quality of writing that it will provide to its clients. Clearly, tone shifts based on the goods and services offered by the companies blotter.com contracts with, but weekly postings of 600+ words of relevant original content is what blotter.com thrives on. Your small business website design should keep all of these in mind.

Groovy. Let’s sell some dog treats.

All silliness aside, blotter.com can provide your business, be it as small and niche as Astrid’s Dog Treats or as globally recognized as NBA.com, a satisfied blotter.com client, with the online marketing tools to create or improve new or existing websites.

Brilliant website design, original weekly content, and search engine optimization for businesses large and small is what blotter.com does. Contact blotter.com today for a free consultation.

SEO for startups in under 10 minutes – Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead for Google presents a brief yet detailed guide to website creation for upstart small businesses in this excellent youtube video.

Max and Ruffy’s – While the tone of this article is quite tongue-in-cheek, vegan dog biscuits do, in fact, exist. This website is a perfect example of intelligent website design optimized with eCommerce for a business that might sound silly but is clearly cleaning up online.

With blotter.com entering its 17th year of experience in the field of online marketing, website search engine optimization is one of the cornerstones of the services it offers. Some websites read as if it were written by a teenager in a text message, often replete with irrelevant content on the state of the world and/or pop culture, and littered with spelling and grammar errors that are common in today’s “advanced” dumbing down of the the English language for speed and technological convenience. Blotter.com, with its years of business, web design, and content creation from Owner Richard Wright, also makes use of the writing expertise of former English teacher and writing instructor Matthew Burt. In addition to his experience as a former small business owner, Matthew has had experience as a high school English teacher as well as a instructor at the collegiate level. He brings years of writing experience and an attention to detail and writing quality that is uncommon to online website content. In addition to Matthew, blotter.com employs a team of experienced professional writers who will insure the quality of your website’s content.

Founded in 1999 by Webmaster/Owner Richard Wright, blotter.com is a full-service online marketing firm. It is an experienced company that specializes in website design, online marketing, social media management, and, most of all, continuously updated original content written with search engine optimization (SEO).

So…What exactly does that mean?

The above is a short answer to what blotter.com does. Here is the long version:

Website Design

Blotter.com offers services to design your company’s website. Beginning with an agreed-upon URL (website name; for example amazon.com, youtube.com, blotter.com), blotter will purchase the website domain and design a website according to your company needs. Blotter.com has the capacity to host the site with necessary updates and maintenance for a monthly fee (contact Richard Wright at richard@blotter.com for specific pricing details).

Already have a well-designed and functional company website? Blotter.com can add e-commerce shopping cart features, clean up existing design issues and flaws, and optimize the static written content for better search results and traffic flow to your company website ***(otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO)).***

Online Marketing

The ways in which traffic is directed to your company’s website has changed in the last few years. Formerly, you could pay a marketing firm to optimize your website through search engines through keyword, key phrases, and tags alone. This was largely based upon a mathematical algorithm developed by Google that essentially counted the number of times a tag or keyword was used within a website in order to bring the website to the top of a search. While this process remains extraordinarily relevant (keyword and key phrase optimization is a large part of the services that blotter.com offers), content is equally important on a website. Thus, the frequency and quality with which a website updates its content with original material is more important than ever.

Social Media Management

In addition to website design and online marketing services, blotter.com offers social media management as a service to its clients as both an additional service to its clients with SEO content and as an individually priced service.

So…what exactly is “social media management”?

Using the social media “dashboard” Hootsuite, blotter.com creates five unique postings to be delivered Monday through Friday at an agreed upon time to social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram. The content of these postings vary in format and content daily. Had a recent company holiday party? Blotter.com will schedule the posting of individual or all of the photographs to your company’s social media outlets. Featuring a new product or service? Blotter.com will write a short feature about it with relevant website linking, complete with appropriate social media tagging on Facebook and re-tweet options on Twitter. This service is recommended for every business, and can be “bundled” with your SEO package or can be purchased as a separate service. Contact blotter.com for price quotes and proposals.

Search Engine Optimization

As mentioned in the Marketing section of this article, one of the cornerstones of blotter.com’s services is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By providing 600-word weekly postings to your company’s website and/or blog of completely original content, blotter.com produces results for searches on google, yahoo, or bing. Using keywords and tags agreed upon with the client, blotter.com‘s goal is to bring your company’s website to the top of the search results, thus “optimizing” your business’s access online through top search engines.

For example, Company X rents party supplies for events like weddings, concerts, public speaking engagements, and community and corporate events in Greenville, SC. An appropriate keyword phrase for Company X might be “event rentals Greenville,” logically, to bring Company X to the top of the list for search results when seeking its business or similar types of businesses. The writing of content provided by blotter.com would be “optimized” by using “event rentals Greenville” multiple times throughout the 600-word posting, and that keyword phrase would be used in future postings weekly to achieve long-term search results through continually updated original content.

So, that’s the long version what we do. Contact blotter.com today for your company’ online marketing needs.

Related Reading and Resources

Codebabes: This is an interesting approach to maintaining one’s attention span when researching what is ultimately a dull subject: beautiful women in bikinis explaining SEO.

Keyword Research Made Easy: A video entitled “How to Do POWERFUL Keyword Research in ONLY 10 Minutes.” Pretty self-explanatory, and relevant to a further discussion of what blotter.com offers.

Canvassing for votes is best done with a good campaign website and social media aggregation strategy. The five reasons to set up a campaign website are to educate voters, to motivate voters, to solicit votes, to centralize media and to show leadership. And don’t forget the importance of registering your domain names early and taking necessary security and legal precautions, too.

1. Educate Voters

While content is king for candidates who have set up a campaign website, Thought Leadership is the queen bringing legitimacy to the campaign as a whole. Education begins with an acknowledgement of the candidate’s background, mission and current activities within an event calendar. The website (rather than a Facebook page) is where journalists and constituents will go to find the detailed biography and background information on the candidate. Set up a campaign website to educate voters accordingly.

2. Motivate Voters

By capturing email addresses and posting periodic updates via social media and email newsletters, the education of voters will be assured while motivating them to vote can also be undertaken. Motivation to find the polls sometimes lacks for voters who feel their vote can’t make a difference. Set up a campaign website with motivation in mind, reminding readers “every vote counts” and “without their votes the election cannot be won.” Less than 15 percent of eligible voters actually make it out to vote, on average, so consider ways to motivate these voters using traditional mechanisms, for instance giving incentives such as barbecue picnics, free schwag (tee shirts, buttons, etc.) and guilt trips.

3. Solicit Votes

In local elections where victory is often measured in the hundreds, political rallies and canvassing at polls on election day are crucial to securing victory. Send out an eBlast the day before election day to spell out what it is a registered voter needs to do. Also, provide links on the website with tools for citizens to get registered in the first place. And don’t forget about the tried and true practice of phone calls. More than half of older Americans vote, a demographic that tends to learn about candidates through traditional media venues including print as well as email. Make your headline: “I’m asking that you vote in tomorrow’s election” clear.

4. Centralize Media

To help win an election for the candidate, website managers should combine social media feeds into the front page of the campaign website while ensuring your blog posts on the website are posted back to Facebook. Facebook is fast becoming the originator of organic clicks, measured by the number of “Likes” and tallied by Facebook to show the number of views on a site. Set up a campaign website with a Social Media Aggregator such as Hootsuite or BufferAp. Pushing content in parallel to multiple outlets shows organization and will maximize the impact of the content produced.

5. Show Leadership

The tone of a website and social media should not be too lighthearted or lacking the qualities of leadership. It is generally agreed there are eight favorable qualities in a leader: Honesty, Ability to Delegate, Confidence, Commitment, Creativity, Intuition and the Ability to Communicate and Inspire. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, is best known for his honesty, listening skills and master oratory prowess. Emulate the tone of your favorite leader and set up a campaign website to reflect those qualities.

Security and Technology is Important

Demonstrating good practices in technology will protect a website from politically motivated hackers while satisfying legal requirements. For instance, legal verbiage must be placed on the footer of each web page and within each social media page. While there are few guidelines for exactly how and where to place “PAID AND AUTHORIZED BY COMMITTEE TO ELECT JOHN DOE”, cover yourself by posting the statement everywhere there is white space.

Demonstrate Domain Name Competency

Politicians should use a dot-com for their website. The dot-coms can be registered for less than $10.00 each using most domain registrar services, so snap up as many as you think will come in handy before you set up a campaign website.

Finally, the ability to update your website and social media posts regularly and with focus to attention can be the difference between winning and losing. Scheduling posts and ensuring these posts have been reviewed by an editor will show organization and commitment in itself. A strong Internet presence with technology driving a candidate’s message will make the difference between that candidate’s winning or losing.

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If websites came in ice cream flavors, many website entrepreneurs would think theirs a variety of Ben & Jerry’s. “Wait until you hear about this cool idea,” they say. “No, this one’s different – there’s something unique in this business recipe!” Never mind they’re probably trying to reinvent the wheel. Listen and nod. Being a website manager invites clients and acquaintances to offer endless ideas on their next great Internet offering. “That’s a great idea!” you say. “Now, Google it and see how many others are doing it already.” Listen and nod. Butter Beendone Before or Strawberry Pipe Dream? The point here is that most websites and ice cream flavors consist of the same basic ingredients. Although Baskin Robins famously claims 31 flavors, most of these flavors start with chocolate, vanilla or some common base, and then get condiments and branding to differentiate them from the others: Banana Nut Fudge Black Walnut Burgundy Cherry Butterscotch Ribbon Cherry Macaroon Chocolate Chocolate Almond more

The Internet started as an anything-goes place for design expression, a place where web designers could try out flavors of communication, then evolve useability standards in unique ways. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s there was a sense of progression both organic and accepting. Failure was measured in terms of not trying. There were no standards, so that web designers could try anything. Today, the commodity that is web design has turned against experimental design in favor of prefabricated templates based on compatibility with Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Too often, “good design” is based on the generic website design: Social media icons, search box, menu, slider, blog section and footers. We web designers should celebrate the innovators who break with standards and innovate interface. 1980s web designs During the peak of the nylon era, the Internet was a network of primitive university and government servers hosting mostly static HTML pages. Design involved blinking buttons embedded in bordered tables displaying shouting fonts more

Let us, for a moment, draw comparisons between U.S. Internet service providers and U.S. bank lenders. Both data providers and lenders wield great power to influence productivity and economy. Chicago Tribute columnist Phil Rosenthal went so far to suggest that a lack of net-neutrality could make the rich richer and the poor poorer by allowing data providers to squeeze customers, charging variable rates that would inevitably cause poorer customers to suffer. A similar thinking goes that unchecked U.S. bank lenders would tend toward lending discrimination which would deny loans to groups of people based on socioeconomic limitations. Net-neutrality advocates want the government to enforce fairness in data distribution in a similar manner that the government regulates banks to ensure all classes have access to equal lending practices. There was a time when no mandate was in place for the government to regulate the banking system, but following early twentieth century financial crises, monetary policy regulation became a priority for U.S. more

The South Asian head bobble has its roots in British colonialism when subjects were too afraid a “yes” or “no” answer would contradict the one asking a question. Today’s South Asians are more than willing to contradict you without fear of reprisal, but their cordial manners often hide their true feelings. Innuendo, after all, is where cultural divide wedges itself. Where westerners perceive apathy in an Indian, the conversation should proceed until a firm “yes” can be established. “We’ll try” or “maybe” probably means “no”. And when communicating with anyone from a different culture, one should always avoid sarcasm or implying something. For instance, “Let’s get that project done Friday” will likely delay your project. Instead, “The deadline is Friday for that project” makes it happen. Business conversations between westerners and Asians often break down because sensibilities are insulted by mistake and often without even knowing. Jumping into business before wading through the waters of cordiality is a frequent mistake. more

The desperation can be seen through moderated postings on Apple’s website, posted in their own Apple Support Community. Here, gdgmacguy had some choice words for someone who suggested that Apple is ignoring the issue: Apple does NOT support downgrading the iOS. Why? who knows, But they don’t. Nothing you can do. If you want to jailbreak your phone and downgrade, then fine. But look at all the postings here by people who have attempted to do so and permanently disabled their phones. Jailbreaking voids your warranty with Apple and eliminates your right to any further assistance. Your choice. No one forced you to upgrade in the first place. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4387499?start=0&tstart=0 But other newsgroups, not moderated by Apple, are giving legacy hardware (i.e., iPhone 4) owners ways to avoid upgrading to new hardware (i.e., iPhone 5) by sharing techniques to combat the bugs Apple engineers are introducing as an incentive for these users to buy new hardware. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3022587?start=405&tstart=0 For instance, the home more